Mad To Be Normal DOP Ali Asad wants to see Laing plaque at Kingsley Hall

Mad To Be Normal’s DOP Ali Asad has tweeted today about a cause close to his heart — a petition to install a blue plaque at Kingsley Hall dedicated to the memory of groundbreaking Scottish psychiatrist Ronald D. (R.D.) Laing and his work to de-mythologize and de-stigmatize those with mental illnesses.

The upcoming Gizmo Films biopic of R.D Laing (starring David Tennant, Elisabeth Moss, Michael Gambon and Gabriel Byrne) entitled Mad To Be Normal has wrapped its filming in Yorkshire. A release date has not been announced.

Originally a community centre in the 1920’s in London’s East End named for Kingsley Lester, R.D. Laing and his Phildelphia Association established Kingsley Hall in 1965 after asking the Lester family for permission to use it as a community for themselves and for those with mental health issues. The experiment lasted for five years before closing.

DOP Asad has set up his petition on 38 Degrees and is asking for your signature to further his petition. To add your name, click on the link in the tweet above or click through directly here.

38 Degrees is “a community of millions of ordinary people who live all across the UK. We work together on the issues we all care about to bring about real change.”

And make sure that you follow Mad to be Normal on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Robert Mullan and Ali Asad – on the Set of Mad to Be Normal – (c) Gizmo Films – Photo Credit: Paul Stephenson

Mad to be Normal (Previously titled ‘Metanoia’) is the story of controversial Scottish psychiatrist, R.D. Laing and the infamous anti-psychiatry experiment he ran at Kingsley Hall – a medication-free sanctuary which made headlines around the world.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Laing was an international celebrity. In Santa Monica, 4,000 people turned out to see him perform a lecture, a week after Bob Dylan had pulled in the same number. A radio journalist confidently referred to him as the “white Martin Luther King.” His books topped student reading lists the world over, as his language excited and enthralled them: “a child born today stands a 10 times greater chance of being admitted to a mental hospital than to a university….perhaps it is our very way of educating them that is driving them mad… [and]…” so- called ‘normal men’ have in the last 50 years killed perhaps 100 million of their fellow normal men.” It was opinions like these which turned the psychiatric establishment against him.

Mad to be Normal also stars Elisabeth Moss, Gabriel Bryne, Michael Gambon and David Bamber. It is written and directed by Robert Mullen, executive produced Peter Gerard Dunphy and produced by Phin Glynn, Charlotte Arden, Alan Latham for Gizmo Films and Bad Penny Productions.

Patti is a passionate David Tennant and Doctor Who fan who lives in Arlington, Texas, USA. She digs doing research and finding out interesting and unique details about the things she loves - which, these days, means everything DT. That also means she adds to the DT Forum site pages and tries to keep the info flowing! She does genealogy, reads, writes fic, and loves all things geek.